Living with Diabetes

Category: Current Status

  • Type 2 – Test Strip Game

    ,,

    If you are a Type 2 diabetic on medication, you probably have been told to play the "test strip" game.  Even Fit4D plays this game.

     

    Here is how the game works:

    • On day 1 and day 2, you test in the morning, fasting and 2 hours after breakast and record it. 
    • On day 3 and day 4, you test before and 2 hours after the meal and record it.
    • On day 5 and day 6, you test before and 2 hours after the meal and record it.
    • On day 7 you test before an evening snack and record fasting the next day.

     

    Rinse and repeat.  This is insane!  Doesn’t even give a decent picture.

     

    Okay, name 3 people who are organized enough to do that.  Here’s how it should go:

    Test every day, morning, lunch and dinner, probably two hours after. Testing after meals you eat a lot of both before and after are good.  Now I’m a pumper and do a bit more.  I often forget the before meal check, but I always get the after meal (bolus check). 

     

     

  • Why I am still depressed

    Other than a possible diabetes complication of depression, I know that I am still depressed and unhappy with my life.

    Fit4D helped me figure it out completely, but I have been suspecting it for some time. 

    It’s the lapband.  I’m going to try an unfill Monday, IF I get a half day sub.  Right now, the sub system is down, and when I checked last night, I didn’t have one.

    I am so restricted on what I can eat right now it isn’t funny.  I can’t eat solid food before around 2:00 pm, and there isn’t much food I can eat of the solid variety.  At lot of this is due to the school year, this week was awful and I still have to write an email about it, solving the problem.

    The following foods are completely out:

      • pork (though I can do sausage if I avoid the skins)
      • most beef
      • fried or grilled chicken
      • vegetables
      • fruit

    With the exception of anything that is cooked in a sauce.  Notice I didn’t say sauce added, though that can help.

    I cough food up on a regular basis, no matter how slow I eat.  Coughing food up isn’t pretty and probably isn’t good for me.

    What really triggered things was the Fit4D people bitching about what I was eating.  The phone call from the coach was very negative along with the emails.  To continue with them I had to set some boundaries because the depression is worse.  I’m on the verge of tears even writing this.

    I honestly can’t eat any of their suggestions.

  • Knee Surgery

    Talked with the orthopedist office today and am now scheduled for September 13. Getting lots of advice and will take any and all given.

  • Maybe not THAT horrible

    While I've apparently left my blood sugar meter at home, I do have a spare OneTouch Mini from my doctor's office that I've been using — I had it stashed in my emergency supplies and begged for two when I was at my doctor's office a few weeks ago.  One is downstairs in my kitchen, the other in my rolling box.

    I've managed to test every two hours and correct which is better than the last few days.

    I'm also making an effort to move my calories earlier in the day, guessing that I'm in starvation mode again.  I have a huge tax bill, insurance (both car and pet) coming up, so I'm trying to save some money.  Cutting out my McD's mochas, and subbing grocery store made mochas with the microwave in my room.  Also doing oatmeal in the afternoon, which I ought to get up and get started.

  • Staff development is not good for blood sugar

    Started out with #BS of 159.  Hit 2xx sometime after breakfast mocha (I have that thing well under control and usually end up n the 140's).

    Had #BS at 179 before lunch.  After throwing a couple of correction and a +50 basal.  Had a #BS at 179 two hours after lunch, which I patted myself on the back for.  Remember to turn off the workshop basal rate about two hours after.  Was in the 170's again at dinner so threw another +50 basal at it, ate 1/2 dinner, went to chiropractor.  Was at 100 at 7:00 so turned off  the basal and ate the rest of dinner.

    Good lapband things I did today:

    When I caught myself eating too fast, as everyone was eating like teachers, I pushed everything away, settled down and then ate right (slowly)

    Hard habit to break.

    At dinner, I started having trouble so I put my meal back in the refrigator to eat later.  Need to do that more often.

  • Still not 100%

    I've still been feeling a touch queasy but haven't had any gastro intestinal problems other than the normal lap band effects.  In fact, my band feels a bit tighter than it did before, but not in a bad way.

    I've had three days in a row with lower TDD so I dropped my basal insulin by 10%.  It might be a bad move, but I'd rather fix a high right now, rather than a low.  Nothing worse than having to eat when you don't feel like it or worse, when you can't, and I can always fix by doing a temp +10% basal.

    But wanted to write it down as if it works, I need to do it to all my basal rates.

  • Sunday

    Well, I actually gained a little bit yesterday so analyzing what I did, and stopping it.

    Did walk 40 minutes yesterday and it did take less time to get it accomplished than Saturday.  Got all but one load of laundry fnished — last one is still in the dryer, and I need to get things put away.

    Morning blood sugar is 125.

    Have a followup appointment with the gastric doctor today.  Will have to tell her, can't do a colon scope right now, as can't deal with the necessary diet.

    I'm slowly putting "sleep in the bank".  I've been able to keep close to my "normal" hours of 10:00 pm – 6:00 pm, but was able to sleep a couple of extra hours yesterday in the middle of the day.  That can be a problem since I often have trouble going to sleep at the right time, but it wasn't yesterday.

    My biggest problem with sleep right now, is getting over my Zune being destroyed.  Hopefully they will send the new one on it's way soon.

  • Today’s my birthday

    I turn 50 today. 

    I've done lots of things to make 50 better, and am making progress towards them.  The lap band surgery is finally working, blood sugar is better than it's been, and I've been able to be active every day this week.  Hoping that I can keep it up.

    The best thing, is that I'm off work until January 4th and only have a couple of small projects to work on. 

    The worst thing, is that one of my students vandalized personal property and I'm trying to get over that.  Wish I had gotten a bit more sympathy from the PLN, but that's okay.

  • Going back in the right direction

    Slowyly headed back in the right direction after a tough day on Monday.  Seeing a new support person and she had suggested I try going to a liquid diet for four days and that completely backfired between being tired, stress from in-laws, etc.

    So my scale went back up 4 pounds in the one day — yikes!  My blood sugar went up accordingly, etc.

    Things are back down today, but not the 4 pounds, sadly.

    Lesson learned, which unfortuantely I knew, but she didn't, and I didn't want to argue.

  • Day 4

    I "cheating" starting tomorrow's entry today and setting it to publish after I've already arrived at school (barring some weird emergency).

    And the cheating seems to have worked!  I'm up and blogging but have most of the hard work done.  Blood sugar was 159.  Better than yesterday at least.  

    Got my teacher workstation up and running, I am pretty sure I have all the hardware drivers installed and when I left I had Ping running a backup.  So should be good.

    My specialist arrived early in the morning, and was relieved I had the hard work done.  It didn't take him long to remove the student version of Deep Freeze and a bit longer to add the teacher version.  He also left me with our licensed copy of Norton Ghost, and a boot CD, but I'm not sure it works, I tried it first before I ran Ping (I'm going to write a review of Ping on the CS site when I get a chance).

    Water didn't go as well, blood sugar testing went better today then probably any other day — the Ameribag (extra small) is helping and I occasionally remember to take it with me when I go on "house calls", but didn't late in the day — did at noon.

    Personal trainer came by and I got in 15 minutes of walking before she got there, we alternate weights and treadmill, for an hour long workout, so I got 30 minutes of walking in.  Then crashed — the time change is getting to me.

    I'm still not sleeping well.  Waking up around 4:00 am and waking up a lot between then and 6:00, then having trouble getting out of bed. 

    Overall my blood sugar levels was better, just need to work on the drinking thing.